


Look Good in Blue

by emrisemrisemris



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Custom Shepard (Mass Effect), Ficlet Collection, M/M, ME2, ME3, post-ME2, pre-ME3, some bits are AU, some kink, there's a playlist in there too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-01-03 19:38:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 5,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12153438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emrisemrisemris/pseuds/emrisemrisemris
Summary: A collection of assorted short MShep/Garrus fics originally posted on Tumblr. Some are specifically about Byron, my canon Shepard; some don't specify.Blanket rating E for some explicit stuff, but most individual pieces are not explicit. More information in the notes to each bit.





	1. Without Speaking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A snapshot of Garrus and Shepard at the end of the Suicide Mission in ME2.
> 
> Originally posted on Tumblr [here](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/159502301943/without-speaking).
> 
> Rated T.

I hit the floor of the airlock full length, falling exactly the way my old hand-to-hand instructor taught us not to: flat and hard, the kind of way that knocks all the breath out of you and, if you're unlucky or carrying an old injury -  _ are you listening, Vakarian? -  _ fractures the point of your collarbone against your own armour. 

Shepard's still metres away, rifle in hand. A last persistent Collector drone goes down at that moment and he shoulders the gun, sprinting for the  _ Normandy.  _ But she's drifting, the gap between her and the ledge opening visibly wider as the engines fight local gravity to keep her in place. 

Shepard clears the edge and throws himself into empty air, and for one endless, ice-cold moment it seems he's fallen short. 

Then he collides with the bottom edge of the airlock, hard, and Samara lunges to pull him inside.

The airlock hasn't even finished closing as we power away. I'm on the floor. Shepard's on the floor. Samara is clinging for dear life to the overhead rail. I can hear the engines rumble up through the ductwork as Joker pushes the  _ Normandy  _ to her limit; I half expect her to explode, but she's a good ship, none better, and every second puts a little more clear space between us and the wrecking ground behind.

The Collector base comes apart in majestic slow motion like a tiny supernova, but we're already free and clear; the wavefront can't catch us before we hit the relay's activation zone. Fire fills the viewports as the relay catches hold of us and sends us arrowing out of real space like a bullet clearing the barrel. 

Everything hurts. My chest feels like I inhaled a flashbang; every breath feels like it's about to trigger a whiteout. But all my joints bend in the right places as I pull myself upright, and the analgesic haze of medi-gel is lending the airlock interior a pleasant fuzzy glow.

Shepard dumps his helmet, still on the floor, and scrambles to his feet. He reaches out to Samara. They grip hands briefly, she nods, they let go. The handshake says  _ You just saved me from a nasty death,  _ the nod says  _ All in a day's work _ . 

Then he turns to me, eyes alive with adrenalin, takes my head in both hands and kisses me. 

The kiss says  _ We made it.  _ The feel of his hands leaving my face and settling warmly, possessively on my hips says  _ Nowhere without you.  _ (The momentary wobble in the  _ Normandy _ 's arc, instantly corrected, probably says  _ Joker just looked in the rearview display. _ )


	2. Reading and Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally [posted on Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/160310696953/otpprompts-person-a-is-in-bed-reading-a-book) in response to this prompt:
> 
> _Person A is in bed reading a book. Person B enters and climbs into bed with them. Without looking up person A raises their arm so that person B can crawl under and snuggle up with them. Person B falls asleep._
> 
> Rated G.

Everyone had been working longer shifts - there were always repairs, and when there weren't repairs, there was data, the endless informational detritus of the war - but Shepard had hardly been sleeping at all. 

And so  _ I'll swing by the battery before dinner  _ had become  _ after dinner  _ had become  _ the Commander is needed in the war room and asked me to tell you not to wait up.  _

Garrus had waited up anyway, letting himself into Shepard's cabin and reading in the light of the empty fishtank. 

Eventually Shepard did turn up, silent, eyes barely open, visibly on autopilot, and just about managed to get his boots off before collapsing into bed. Without looking up, Garrus raised his arm and Shepard crawled under, settling his head into the warm hollow of the turian's waist. It was less than a minute before his breathing slowed and settled.

"EDI," Garrus said quietly when he was sure the commander was asleep, "when's he due back on shift?"

"Three hours," EDI said, equally quietly.

Garrus sighed, and put the datapad aside. “Let him sleep. If anyone needs him, wake me.”


	3. Never You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the Cerberus attack on the Citadel, during the conversation in ME3 in front of the memorial wall: Shepard mentions he would have shot Kaidan if Kaidan hadn't backed down, and Garrus says "... I'll remember that the next time we fight."
> 
> Originally posted on [Tumblr.](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/160562040388/ill-remember-that-next-time-we-fight-garrus)
> 
> Rated G.

“I’ll remember that next time we fight.”

Garrus’ sense of humour, as always, is about ninety degrees out of kilter with the rest of the world. This is skirting a line even for him. What kind of answer is there to a statement like that, to  _ I'm pretty sure you wouldn't hesitate to kill me  _ dressed up in a bad joke?

What Shepard wants to say, what he never knew until exactly that moment was:  _ not you.  _ He was yea-close to killing Kaidan, and would have done it; the major was between him and his duty. He left Ashley on Virmire. He sent Tali to her death, watched Mordin walk head held high to his, heard Thane's last breath. All of them were, in the moment, unavoidable. They don't weigh on him beyond the frustrated wish that things could have been otherwise, in another universe, in another life.

But not Garrus.  _ Not you.  _ He knows in that instant that he can never do it. Not for need and not for duty; there is no universe in which Commander Shepard looks into those blue eyes and pulls the trigger, not though the world depended on it.

There's nothing to say and so Shepard says nothing. The moment's gone. The ache in his chest, that stays.

 


	4. Morning After Blues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skimming [this list](http://infiltraitor-n7.tumblr.com/post/160583024117/tokiosunset-people-should-do-more-meet-ugly) of prompts I saw _“We met each other on a Sunday morning, both doing our walk of shame” AU_ and thought “Byron Shepard is exactly the kind of person who would, while doing the walk of shame, hit on someone else who was clearly also doing the walk of shame, and not think this was in any way weird.” 
> 
> Walk of shame, elevator of shame, same difference
> 
> Originally posted on [Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/160596686098/i-skimmed-this-list-of-prompts-saw-we-met-each).
> 
> Rated T.

If there had been any justice in the world, the elevator would have been empty.

Garrus almost opted to wait for the second elevator when he saw there was someone in the first one, but squashed the impulse; it'd add minutes to his journey and he was already late enough that people were going to crack jokes when he walked in. His head hurt. What the hell had he been thinking?

The elevator doors closed. He took in the rumpled, slept-in uniform and faint but penetrating smell of levo alcohol on his fellow passenger and concluded the fair-haired human was probably in the same straits, i.e., late, having slept in the wrong bed the previous night. Even more grounds - beyond ancient city etiquette, that ironclad unspoken code observed almost universally, unlike, to pull an example  _ entirely  _ out of the air, the actual law - not to acknowledge one another's existence. Garrus settled back against the wall and politely stared into space.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the human looking him up and down.

"Your -" The human waved one hand vaguely across his own face at nose level. "It's smeared."

Stomach sinking, Garrus pulled up a reverser field on his omni-tool and checked the orange-tinted pseudoreflection for signs of damage. The human was right. The left half of his markings were a smeared mess, with blue streaked down over his maxillary plate and up and backward almost as far as the start of his crest. How in hell had they managed that?

He'd been drunk - they'd both been drunk - and they'd gone pretty far, but -

"I thought it usually took serious solvent to get turian facepaint off," the human remarked.

"Usually," Garrus said sourly, staring into the reverser.

And now he'd need to clean it off and reapply it before getting into work, or he'd get pulled up for uniform infractions  _ and  _ never hear the end of it. In a moving elevator, without a proper mirror, and with this human standing there smirking. 

Fuck.

He rummaged through utility compartments in his suit until he found a couple of wipes and the stick he used for touching the paint up, and wondered if he'd be better off using the reverser again or squinting into one of the polished walls. 

"Let me," said the human unexpectedly. 

"What?"

"I can see what I'm doing," said the human, and took the wipes and paint stick out of Garrus' hand before he could protest. "Hold still. And maybe lean over a bit."

What the hell. A half-baked paint job from a hungover human couldn't, at this rate, make matters worse. And it only had to hold up for long enough for him to get into the restroom at work and do it properly.

He held still while the human swiftly wiped down the smeared plates, dried them vaguely with one of his sleeves, and then, face frowning with concentration, started to put the paint back on. There was that eye-stinging smell of alcohol again; Garrus revised his mental estimation from "badly hungover" to "still pretty drunk". But the hand holding the paint stick was steady and sure, warm pressure against his jawline, and finished quickly.

The human stood back, tilting his head - checking for symmetry; even on another species the gesture was familiar - and said "You're very handsome. Has anyone told you that recently?"

And then, as if this had been a perfectly normal thing to say under the circumstances and not delivered in a manner that made Garrus' stomach do somersaults, the human made a vaguely dissatisfied noise and leaned back in to make a minuscule correction to one of the lines he'd just drawn.

He handed back the paint stick a second later and pulled up a reverser on his own omni-tool for Garrus to check his work.

It was actually very neatly done.

The elevator pinged and slowed, and the human glanced up. "My floor. See you around."

"Thanks for the save," Garrus said again, all in a rush. "I - should buy you a drink. Or something."

"I'd like that," said the human, and grinned. "We're docked in D19. Come by."


	5. Too Tall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this adorable comic by fiishes on Tumblr.](https://fiishes.tumblr.com/post/160897353558/too-tall)
> 
> Originally posted on [Tumblr.](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/160908017493/fiishes-too-tall-this-one-spawned-a-mini-fic)
> 
> Rated G.

I'm coming up the stairs from the engineering underdeck with a couple of boxes of parts and bump into Garrus in the corridor; he has his omni-tool out, showing some kind of cabling diagram, and his head halfway into an open wall panel somewhere well above eye level.

I stand a metre eighty-three, well above average for a human and not out of place amongst most of the other races. I can look an elcor in the eye. What I'm trying to be clear about here is that I am _not_ short, and Garrus _still_ has a clear thirty centimetres on me despite actually being on the short side for a male turian, as he likes to bring up approximately once per all the goddamn time.

He disentangles himself and looks around as I put the box down. "Do you need a hand with that?"

"I'm fine. Just need to change my grip."

He goes back to his omnitool. I step up onto the box when his back's turned, and put my arms around his neck.

He makes that surprised-happy chirrup-purr and reaches up, laying his hand over mine. He must have been doing something finicky with the cabling: he's not wearing his gauntlets, and his palm is rough and cool over the back of my hand. 

We stand like that for a moment, me resting my head on the side of his, until eventually he can't resist saying "Are those boxes actually going somewhere, or did you just need the boost?"

I headbutt him in the side of the face to indicate what I think of this, and tell him "Main deck." 

"I'll give you a hand." Before I can protest he's turned, bent down and picked me up around the knees, folding me neatly over his shoulder like a firefighter pulling a body out of a burning building. 

Suddenly I'm looking at the small of his back, or, to be more precise, that waist, which I would be a lot happier about if I wasn't also seeing stars from all the blood going to my head. "Garrus, you  _ son of a _ -"

"I've always wanted to do that," he says happily from somewhere overhead. "You know, I thought you'd be heavier."

"Do you do this to all your commanding officers?" I ask him, acidly.

I can't see his face, but I can  _ hear  _ the grin in his words. "Only the short ones."

He does put me down, and presses his forehead briefly against mine while he's bent over. And then the moment's gone, like a change in the wind. He coughs awkwardly and goes back to his cabling diagram. I collect my boxes and head for the elevator, shaking my head.


	6. The Day We Met

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the prompt "The Day We Met", for day 1 of Mass Effect Relationships Week ([#MERweek](https://www.tumblr.com/search/%23merweek)) on Tumblr.
> 
> Originally posted on [Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/161527592607/for-mass-effect-relationships-week-merweek)
> 
> Rated T.

There was the business on the Citadel, of course, but that was in another life.

There was the life before Alchera, which had just started to taste of hope when it ended abruptly in choking darkness and awful, silent fire. Then comes a gap, which neither of them brings up very often. Then there was the life after Alchera, which also involves darkness and fire; but it turns out that both of them are much easier to face hand in hand.

For Shepard, of course, there's nothing metaphorical about it. The man was dead by almost all sensible criteria, and his memories of his previous life are still not quite complete. (Mordin raved about it nonetheless when he got his hands on Miranda's files. _Elegant solution! Imperfect result, yes, but still extraordinary. Amazing what can be achieved with unlimited funding. Government work usually more constrained._ ) It's quite easy to make the case that his life did in fact begin in a Cerberus medbay.

For Garrus, it's only a figure of speech, but one which sometimes feels more real than the strict truth. Shepard died. He spent two years trying to do some good, and what those years bought him was loss, heartache, treachery and blood, and none of it - not the helping, not the hurting - did anything but drain away into the gap.

(The person who put the best words to it was Thane, of all people. The drell was a good listener, and one evening Garrus had found himself quite unexpectedly spilling the whole sorry story. At the end of it, the assassin had studied his face, and then said,  _ My faith teaches we are not our bodies. Your body may have lived and breathed during those years; but did you? _ )

By almost all sensible criteria, that day on the bridge was the worst of Garrus' life. Trapped, surrounded, he'd found a kind of savage joy in the knowledge that the pain was almost over, and there was nothing left for him to do except to take as many as he could of them with him. Then he'd seen a scratched, bloodied N7 insignia, just for an instant, down the scope of his rifle, and it had been like the sun cutting through the clouds, after a fog that had held for so long he'd forgotten daylight was a thing that happened in the world. 

It took him a while to put words to it, of course, and longer to pull together the courage to say any of them to Shepard. 

He has still never managed to say aloud the words  _ I've been in love with you since the day we met,  _ even though he knows Shepard would understand what he meant. 


	7. Pictures of You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the prompt "Pictures of You", for day 2 of Mass Effect Relationships Week ([#MERweek](https://www.tumblr.com/search/%23merweek)) on Tumblr.
> 
> Originally posted on [Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/161557190923/another-one-for-mass-effect-relationships-week).
> 
> Rated T.

Detainees are allowed pictures on their walls or framed on the little bolted-down desk, although the criteria for what's permissible are exhaustive and exhausting. No violence, no politics, no pornography. Everything has to be vetted and approved by the detention wing's admin team.

Byron Shepard has a motley collection of pictures arranged along the back of the desk. One is of  two middle-aged women in Alliance blues, his mother and stepmother. (Captain Hannah Shepard has the same short-cropped dishwater-blonde hair as her son, and looks like she would rather be anywhere other than in front of the camera. Her wife, who is much tidier, looks at her with an expression of affectionate exasperation.) One is of the SSV  _ Normandy.  _ One is of a much-refurbished Bay-class troop transport and hab-ship called the SSV  _ Narragansett.  _ One, mysteriously, is of a hamster peering out through the blown-out visor of what looks suspiciously like an N7 battle helmet. One is of the Citadel. One is of a turian.

"Who's that?" James Vega asks one day, after escorting Shepard back from the base's gym. The war hero turned war criminal doesn't get to go anywhere without a guard.

Shepard glances in the direction of Vega's gesture, and stops. "That's Garrus." A rare hesitation, which gets Vega's attention: the man is normally diplomatic-incident blunt as a matter of course. "He'll be back on Palaven by now."

Vega gets the feeling there's about a novel's worth of things not said in those two sentences.

"Long way," he says, awkwardly. "That's rough."

"Yeah," Shepard says, and turns towards the window. Vega takes his cue, and leaves.

With the lieutenant gone, Shepard picks up the photo and looks at it again. It's a full-length shot of Garrus in civvies, arms folded, looking at the camera with an expression of mild but affectionate scepticism; the human equivalent would have been a raised eyebrow. 

Garrus Vakarian, seven feet tall and handsome as all hell, who carries himself with the insouciance of a man in full battle armour even when he takes it off, which he more or less only does for Shepard. The civilian clothes show off his broad shoulders, slender waist, and the square, bulky hips that fit very nicely into Shepard's hands. He's bare-handed, showing his claws - which is a provocation all by itself, because Shepard has altogether too many associations with Garrus' hands to look at them neutrally - and half-smiling, teeth visible in the crack of his jaw. He is a study in angular, predatory poise, and remains the best-looking man Shepard's ever seen.

The picture captures one moment in time, and entirely fails to include the turian's drawl of  _ Finished?  _ after the photo was taken, or the fact that two seconds later Shepard was flat on his back on the bed with both wrists pinned over his head. 

Shepard puts down the picture, and reflects that they'd never have let him have it if they'd known what it was actually of.


	8. The Heat of Battle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the prompt "The Heat of Battle", for day 4 of Mass Effect Relationships Week ([#MERweek](https://www.tumblr.com/search/%23merweek)) on Tumblr.
> 
> Originally posted on [Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/161645607143/for-mass-effect-relationships-week-merweek).
> 
> Rated T.

Shepard fell rather than ducked into the shadow of the broken wall, rolled, and sat up with his back to the concrete as a rocket went off somewhere in the distance.

Then, much to Garrus' surprise, he pulled off his helmet and dumped it beside him. There was blood crusted along his forehead, and his blond hair was messy with sweat, but he looked exhilarated. 

The turian raised his head for a moment to sight over the wall, visor mapping the distant Cerberus troops as little glowing dots in the infra-red, then ducked back down a moment later with a glowing heat-sink and one of the dots rapidly fading out. "Enjoying yourself, are you?"

"Just a little." Shepard dropped his assault rifle and unslung his Mantis, popping in a new thermal clip and taking off the safety. "I figure we can hold here for a bit. Where's Javik?"

As if on cue, there was a green flash from some distance ahead, and an abruptly cut-off scream.

"Doing what he does best," Garrus said dryly, and risked another glance over the wall just as a hovering Cerberus drone crashed out of the air wreathed in green light. "Oh,  _ nicely  _ done."

Shepard finished checking his rifle and scrambled into a crouch. "Right. How many do you see?"

"Twelve. More coming down." Garrus tucked himself in beside Shepard to reload, and eyed the buildings lining the road consideringly. "They're bottlenecked, though, and you found a lovely clear line."

Blood on his face, sweat in his hair, eyes sunk in dark pits that betrayed the weeks he'd been running on adrenalin instead of sleep: Shepard looked like hell, and yet still seemed to be having the time of his life. This was his element, and he moved through it like he'd been born to it. (He had, of course. Mother in the service. Raised on ships.) 

Shepard leant forward to bump his forehead against Garrus' browplate, and said "And you complain I never take you anywhere nice."


	9. Look Good In Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A playlist for Garrus Vakarian & Byron Narragansett Shepard, lovers & renegades, from beginning to end to after the end.
> 
> For Mass Effect Relationships Week ([#MERweek](https://www.tumblr.com/search/%23merweek)) on Tumblr. 
> 
> Originally posted on [Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/161593794243/look-good-in-blue-a-playlist-for-garrus-vakarian).
> 
> I have no idea how you rate playlists.

_[Look Good in Blue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxmNdVC02Qg&list=PLdoqa1M2LRA8tHsy7C7mu4U_2JXTJLU_Y) _ \- Blondie

 _[That’s Gonna Leave a Scar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwFKV2j7BUI&index=2&list=PLdoqa1M2LRA8tHsy7C7mu4U_2JXTJLU_Y) \- _ Sixx:A.M.

 _[Angel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cKu6YN3CgA&index=3&list=PLdoqa1M2LRA8tHsy7C7mu4U_2JXTJLU_Y) \- _ Concrete Blonde

 _[The Light](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1UUAhZ3JzM&index=4&list=PLdoqa1M2LRA8tHsy7C7mu4U_2JXTJLU_Y) _ \- Disturbed

 _[Bulletproof Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seFu9fQ_-FI&index=5&list=PLdoqa1M2LRA8tHsy7C7mu4U_2JXTJLU_Y) _ \- My Chemical Romance

 _[No Light, No Light](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGH-4jQZRcc&index=6&list=PLdoqa1M2LRA8tHsy7C7mu4U_2JXTJLU_Y) _ \- Florence + The Machine

 _[Still Unbroken](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw_6eUgpo30&index=7&list=PLdoqa1M2LRA8tHsy7C7mu4U_2JXTJLU_Y) \- _ Lynyrd Skynyrd

* * *

[complete list on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdoqa1M2LRA8tHsy7C7mu4U_2JXTJLU_Y)


	10. Preventive Maintenance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Garrus and Shepard take advantage of a stolen moment during ME3.
> 
> Originally posted on [Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/163150975578/i-wrote-smut-mshepgarrus-494-words-nsfw).
> 
> Rated E.

Small moments, in the corners and the interstices between missions, between messages, between the endless calls on Shepard's time; between the bruising skirmishes that blister  _ Normandy _ 's hull and throw out the delicate balance of her guns; between the hours Garrus spends with his head down, recalibrating to bring the heavy cannon back into line after every shot and wrenching evasive turn.

Small mercies. A virtual meeting finishes, somehow, a few minutes early; another is called off, for reasons that are nothing good but for which Shepard nonetheless feels deeply, guiltily grateful. The gap is a little bite out of time, and a chance for Shepard to breathe.

He messages Garrus.  _ I have half an hour. _

_ Your place or mine? _

_ Yours. _

Garrus pins him against the wall of the battery with by now practised ease, and presses his forehead to Shepard's briefly before nuzzling his way down the angle of his jaw and the curve of his throat, mandibles rough, breath warm. Shepard submits with tangible relief, the tension draining out of his shoulders as he closes his eyes.

Garrus works his way down his lover's body with talons and teeth, leaving shallow, bright scrapes down Shepard's chest and back, every one accompanied by a gasp or a moan not quite bitten back. There's still a fine tracery of red lines from the last time, and Garrus stops to run his tongue along a couple of them. The noise that produces is less a moan than a single prolonged exhale, almost inaudible over the hum of the battery; Garrus feels it in Shepard's torso rather than hears it, overlaying the feverish one-two one-two of the Commander's heart.

The fastening of Shepard's belt pops open when levered with a claw. Garrus goes down to his knees and pulls Shepard's pants down as he goes, thumb talons scoring long tracks down the inside of his thighs. Shepard's already hard, and stiffens further when Garrus closes one hand around the human's smooth shaft. Even now, he still marvels at how soft the Commander's hide is compared to his own, how sensitive; how unprotected.

Shepard reaches blindly for him, hands holding his head, fingers meshed up under the sides of his crest trying to pull him closer. Garrus holds back against the pressure, refusing to speed up. Some things shouldn't be rushed.

Even the lightest touch of his claws along Shepard's cock is enough to put a hitch in his breathing: Shepard flattens himself against the wall as if trying to blend into it, fighting to hold still as Garrus traces the long vein first with his talons, then with his teeth, and finally with his tongue, gently then roughly, coaxing Shepard up to the edge and then, shuddering, over it.

Shepard spills himself into Garrus' hands almost silently, back arching.

Garrus rests his head against Shepard's hip, and permits himself a purr of satisfaction. Shepard trails his fingers down his crest, warm and exhausted, and breathes out.  

 


	11. Night Sounds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A glimpse of night-time on the _Normandy_.
> 
> Originally posted on [Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/163861901338/garrus-born-under-the-grey-sky-of-palaven-has-a).
> 
> Rated G.

Garrus, born under the grey sky of Palaven, has a fondness for silence.   
  
Shepard, born in space - where true silence is a worse sign than any alarm - finds his peace in a thick texture of overlapping hums: drive core, cooling system, air recirculation, shields, joined in this room by the fish tank and his terminal. The sound lies over the ship like a familiar blanket, warm and reassuring.   
  
The bedside time display says three-thirty a.m., shiptime. Beside him Garrus is sound asleep, mandibles twitching, curled up in a pile of commandeered pillows (the preferred solution for angular bodies in human beds.)    
  
Even his breathing is two-tone, underlaid with a faint harmonic buzz: as familiar as the ship-sounds, now, and a deeper comfort.   
  
Shepard budges up closer to the pile, and settles himself to get back to sleep, amidst the sounds that mean safety, and a space to rest.


	12. Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shepard lies awake in the detention centre and daydreams about Garrus.
> 
> Also on [Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/166051290293/hellooo-im-having-huge-trouble-writing-anything).
> 
> Rated M.

Shepard lies in the narrow detention centre bed, the first grey traces of early morning leaking in past the window-blind, and daydreams hazily of Garrus. Wonders if it's morning on Palaven and if the sunrises are as eerily monochrome as they look in pictures, all different tints of silver. Wonders, inevitably, if turian plumbing is sufficiently similar that Garrus has the same problem of waking up hard for no particular reason: he's never observed it in person, but then when they were together Garrus was usually up first.

It's a fine image, though, of Garrus curled in the pillows in that wonderful loose-limbed just-woken way, blinking with sleepy desire as he reaches to pull up the blanket. The blanket does exactly nothing to conceal his parted pelvic plates and the firm rough/smooth length of his erection, and Shepard imagines reaching over, barely awake himself, to trail his fingers up the ridges of his lover's cock and suggest wordlessly that they not go back to sleep.


	13. Wanting, Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Garrus summons Shepard down to the battery at the end of a long day. A little bit of kinky smut without any plot involved whatsoever.
> 
> Also on [Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/166141105313/saturday-morning-smut-i-still-cant-get-anywhere).
> 
> Rated E.

_ Come by when you're done for the night, _ Garrus' message had said.  _ And I want you hard. _   
  
Shepard finishes reviewing the last of the reports, hits save, and turns his terminal off.    
  
He slouches back in the desk chair, undoing his belt, and grips his cock, wondering what Garrus wants, what it'll be today: bent over the gunner's console, braced against the wall, or hands and knees on the metal floor? The thought quickens his heartbeat and brings sweat to his skin; it takes an effort of will to stand up and wrestle his uniform back into line rather than bringing himself off right there.   
  
Nobody else is awake. Downstairs, he hurries through the mess to the battery, and the door clicks locked behind him.   
  
"Sorry, Shepard," Garrus says silkily, without even turning round. He's out of his armour, in only the skin-tight underlayer. "I'm in the middle of something. You'll have to wait."   
  
Shepard bites back a groan, and goes to lean against the wall when a click from the turian stops him. "Nuh-uh. Stay there. Take your anti-allergens. And, hm ... kneel down."   
  
Shepard calls up the fabricator code on his omni-tool, barely noticing the sting of the microinjector, and goes to his knees. Aching, he tries to get a handle on his breathing. Garrus is right there, within touching distance, within kissing distance even, and the temptation to just lean in -   
  
"Stay still, Shepard," Garrus says, voice low and amused.   
  
Shepard keeps his hands obediently at his sides and, forbidden to do anything more, drinks in the view. Garrus' slender, gorgeous waist, that Shepard's hands go almost all the way around. His bulky hips, toned ass, trim calves with their protruding spurs.    
  
He wonders if Garrus is as hard as he is right now, whether he's thinking the same hot thoughts.    
  
He wonders how long it'll be before he's allowed to touch his lover, and what he'll be ordered to do first. Maybe to trail his tongue along Garrus' calf spurs; maybe to press Garrus' thighs apart and eat out his cloaca, listening to him moan. Maybe to hold still while Garrus fucks his mouth, scales slithering over his lips, talons in his hair.   
  
Maybe it'll be all of them, and then Garrus will send him back to his cabin, rock hard now, with instructions not to touch himself, because that's  _ his _ prerogative.   
  
Shepard's already on the edge, heart hammering, skin beaded with sweat, when Garrus finally turns away from the console.    
  
He puts one claw under Shepard's chin, pressing just hard enough to make Shepard look up at him, eyes wide, breath catching in his throat.   
  
"Now," Garrus drawls, subvocals smoky, voice honeyed with that insouciance that makes Shepard shiver, "where were we?"   
  
  



	14. Undone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the prompt #43 "undone", off [this list](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/166225197718/send-me-a-number-and-ill-write-a-micro-story), requested by [ThreeWhiskeyLunch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeWhiskeyLunch).
> 
> Also on [Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/166265860858/for-the-micro-story-thing-threewhiskeylunch).
> 
> Rated T.

Shepard had never really thought about what turians wore until he needed to undress one.

It turned out that long, angular, top-heavy bodies made almost entirely of sharp edges required fairly complex tailoring, and so more or less every item of clothing, no matter how slight, was zipped or laced or buckled or buttoned, and had to be undone - slowly, carefully, delicately undone - by hand. In the dark, only the backlight of the fishtank for company, it became a matter of touch alone, sketching the contours of Garrus' body with his fingers, learning his way and being learned.

His fingers in the hidden fastenings of Garrus' tunic.

Garrus pushing down the zip of his uniform with one lazy claw, leaving a bright scratch in its wake.

Shepard working open the laces of the turian's skin-tight undersuit to find cool, scaled skin.

Garrus guiding Shepard's uncertain hand to the soft seam between his pelvic plates, face pressed into the soft curve of Shepard's neck, mouthing a silent _Yes_ into the pulsing vein.


	15. Crave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to #47 "crave" off [this prompt list](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/166225197718/send-me-a-number-and-ill-write-a-micro-story), requested by [ellebeedarling](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ellebeedarling).
> 
> Also on [Tumblr](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/166301388598/from-the-micro-story-prompt-list-47-crave-at).
> 
> Rated T.

Shepard says all the right things to Hackett, and the Council, and his tired, frightened crew, about the galaxy, about freedom, about their duty. Some of it he even believes, but it's not what drives him anymore.

He can't say exactly when it all - all of it - started being for Garrus.

There's wanting, and there's craving. There's attraction, and there's desire. There's lust and there's _this_ , this red need that bubbles up from heart and guts and crotch and sets hold of his spine until his entire body aches with it. Even when he's too exhausted to stand, too tired to see, it's there, banked down in his ribcage until he has room to breathe again, and he presses on from burning world to burning world because somewhere on the other side of this hell is a place they can stand together without the echo of the Reapers' cry, and the only way out is through.


	16. Now What?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally on [Tumblr.](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/167279752158/trying-to-keep-my-hand-in-despite-having-zero) 259 words.
> 
> Rated T.

It was far too easy to get talking to EDI. The soft-spoken AI was endlessly patient, voraciously curious and received confessions from the mundane to the heartrending with the same careful lack of judgement. You could tell EDI anything.

“You should ask him,” EDI said, when Garrus had trailed off into embarrassed silence.

“What’s the point?” Garrus said, and leaned on the console. He’d ignored it for long enough, chatting, that it’d gone to standby. “I’m pretty sure he’s not interested in turians.”

“His extranet history suggests otherwise,” EDI said mildly.

Garrus opened his mouth, closed it again, and eventually managed “Ah, EDI. That’s something organics would usually consider private …”

“I had thought it was a matter of public knowledge.” EDI sounded apologetic. “Lieutenant Moreau regularly remarks on it.”

“He’s never mentioned it to me,” Garrus said, and immediately winced at how annoyed he sounded.

“Perhaps he did not wish to embarrass you,” said EDI.

“Yeah …” Garrus said, and fell silent, and tried to go back to work.

Except now EDI’s little bombshell wouldn’t leave him alone. He couldn’t quite imagine cool, fastidious Shepard looking at pornography at all, let alone the turian kind … no, no, apparently he could, and either the temperature in the battery had spiked or the idea appealed far too much.

Shepard always knew his own mind. He’d know exactly what he wanted; always did. No reason to believe he’d demur, or equivocate, if Garrus just asked …

Garrus shut his eyes and stifled a groan. Unrequited crushes were easy. But what if he said yes?


	17. The Good Kind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always figured that for a human, _any_ serious intimate contact with a turian has got to hurt - they seem to be either rough or sharp more or less everywhere. (See also Mordin’s commentary: “chafing”.) 
> 
> Shepard likes it. Garrus worries. 
> 
> Also on [Tumblr.](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/167531085683/i-always-figured-that-for-a-human-any-serious)
> 
> Rated E.

Shepard has had a long time to develop a personal taxonomy of pain. There's the bad kind, which doesn't really need explanation. There's the kind that's worth it, like aches after exercise, or the sting of tattoos. And there's the good kind.

Garrus is the good kind.

It's not just the penetration thing, for all that's always what people mean when they lower their voices and ask apprehensively "Doesn't it hurt?" Having the turian in him is awkward and agonising and incandescent all at the same time, but it's not the only thing. It's the claws, too, the way even the lightest touch can tip into a scratch. The way the texture of Garrus' skin on his varies from leather to sandpaper to gravel, and always leaves him sore. The hard keel of his carapace scraping along Shepard's spine, his faceplates sharp on Shepard's lips, his teeth everywhere; the collection of tender bruises the day after.

Garrus worries so much about hurting him, and has done since the very first time Shepard took his hand. Every time they fuck, since the first time, he'll ask:  _Is this how you want it? Is this good? Is this?_  And Shepard tells him  _yes_  and  _yes_  and  _yes_ , and Garrus is extraordinarily single-minded once he's been reassured he's doing the right thing.

After Menae, after six months apart, Garrus comes up to Shepard's cabin in the evening, anxious. Touches his cheek with one hand.  _Is this_  - the gesture takes in the bed, the table, the wall, the galaxy -  _still what you want?_

 _Yes_ , says Shepard, and turns his head to let Garrus' talons scrape lightly across his skin.


	18. Orders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Garrus has been pining after Shepard for a _long_ time.
> 
> Originally on [Tumblr.](https://emrisemrisemris.tumblr.com/post/172118049513/garrus-has-been-pining-after-shepard-for-a-long)
> 
> Rated M, probably.

There were few turian military traditions more time-honoured than getting an embarrassing crush on your commanding officer, but knowing that your quiet pining and guilty fantasies had a long and illustrious history didn't make it any less awkward.   
  
Garrus tried to imagine that particular conversation, and failed.  _ What's wrong? Nothing's wrong, Commander, I'm just hopelessly attracted to you. It's a cultural thing, I'll get over it. _ He'd never gotten over it.    
  
Shepard's death hadn't killed the fantasy, but had layered it under enough grief that Garrus had been able to pretend it didn't exist. His reappearance had ignited something in Garrus' heart - and groin - that he'd thought Omega had burned out of him, and six months on it'd only gotten worse. Shepard had come back from the dead incandescently furious and with a face full of new scars -   
  
(Joker had looked from one to the other and said  _ Hey Commander, did you start a fashion? His 'n' his photogenic facial scarring? _ and Shepard had deadpanned  _ Yeah, we're thinking of making it dress code for the wedding _ , and that one throwaway joke had had Garrus walking on air for days like a cadet invited to the regimental ball.)   
  
\- and Garrus had immediately fallen for him all over again.   
  
He'd even tried rewatching one of the educational video lectures they showed to cadets, in the hope that might snap him out of it.  _ When you serve under an officer you're proud to obey, it's very common for that to translate into more personal feelings ... _ It'd given him a vivid sense-memory of the reek of standard-issue base soap and Sergeant Rhyil's horrible green facepaint, and hadn't helped in the slightest.   
  
_ An officer you're proud to obey. _ At fifteen it'd made him snicker; now it made him sweat. Like he wouldn't obey any order Shepard gave him, and love it, and probably beg for more afterwards. Like he hadn't dreamed, awake and asleep, of Shepard saying, in front of everyone,  _ Garrus, my cabin, now, _ and every possible variation that came next.   
  
Shepard telling him to get out of his armour, and fucking him over the gunnery console.   
  
Shepard putting him on his back while they were sparring, and then having him right there on the cargo bay floor.   
  
Shepard ordering him to lick his cock, or eat out whatever hole humans had down there, up against the wall. Shepard's strong fingers tight under Garrus' fringe, pulling him close til all he could smell or taste was Shepard's skin and all he could hear was Shepard's voice, not commanding now but broken into moans.   
  
Shepard saying his name.   
  
Shepard saying  _ fuck me. _   
  
Asking, and Shepard saying  _ Yes _ .


End file.
